TRANSCRIPT
TRANSCRIBED BY Poorvaja R. (x 7)
Please state your name, date and age.
My name is Tesfabirhan Mangistu. My age, I’m 19. Today’s date is December 6, 2023.
Okay, so the first question I would like to ask you is, what do you remember from your first days being in the US, and what was different?
So, I remember landing in the airport, getting out the airplane. I was like, yo, it’s hot. It was super hot. I came, like, in August, I think. Uh…oh, something that was different – I didn’t expect to meet a lot of people that are from where I’m from. There was a lot of Ethiopians in the airport. And yeah, [inaudible].
What were some things that were new from here and wasn’t in your old country?
Well, something weird I noticed was like, where I’m from there’s not a lot of women who drive cars, even ride bikes and stuff. But here I noticed, there’s actually lots – probably more than men, women who drive and do anything a man can do.
It’s pretty different.
Yeah.
And what was the journey like?
You mean like…[sighs] It was tough, a little bit. Like it was a lot of process. It was tiring, you know. I remember we needed money. We couldn’t really get it, and then we had to borrow money. It was kind of tough.
It was hard?
Yes.
